Tuesday, March 25, 2014

How to Connect your Windows 8.1 PC to GITWIFI in GIT College Campus

So the Microsoft Released the new and better Windows 8.1 update after obvious failure of Windows 8, but everyone of us here in GIT were not be able to update our Windows to the newest version though it was made available for free because of very unusual reason that the college WiFi network encryption was not supported in the new version. I tried to find the reason why it was supported in earlier versions but not in the newest one. I found that Microsoft had removed the capability to configure WPA security and its associated types of encryption (i.e. TKIP, and GITWIFI is encrypted in the same). While it is true that most of the world has moved on to WPA2 or better, there are still many companies who are Cisco shops that still use WPA/TKIP. If you had noticed, the routes in the campus are of Cisco, so it was obvious that they were using TKIP encryption.

Now, are we going to use the same old Windows though it is needed to update to the latest one? No Way!!!

While Microsoft removed this functionality from the wireless configuration UI, they apparently had not removed this capability from the operating system. After digging a lot on the web, i finally found a very easy way to connect successfully. Watch this video in which i explained how to Connect to GITWIFI on a windows 8.1 PC step by step.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/j3MT_rVbhbg

Video not cool? I got steps for you….

STEP 1:- Open Command prompt with admin rights.

Right click on start button and then click on “Command Prompt (Admin)”

Note that it is necessary to open with admin tights, so click exactly what i said and if you get any security warning, just ignore it and allow.

STEP 2:- Check for already saved profile of GITWIFI, and if its there, then delete it.

type the following command to get list of all saved profiles:-

“netsh wlan show profile“

After pressing Enter, you will get a list like this & you can check if “GITWIFI” profile is present or not. If not present, you can proceed to next step, i.e., Step 3, else continue reading this step.

In case its present, it is necessary to remove it and creating a new one from scratch. To delete it, type the following command in the Command prompt.:-

“netsh wlan delete profile GITWIFI“

now if you see this notification saying //Profile”GITWIFI” is deleted from interface “Wi-Fi”//, it means that your command executed successfully.

STEP 3:- Make new Wi-Fi Profile from scratch in traditional way.

Now, Make a new profile named “GITWIFI” shown in way below.

Right click on network icon on the task bar & select “Open Network and Sharing centre”

Click on “Set up a new connection or network”

Click on “Manually connect to a wireless network”.

Fill the given details:-

Network Name- GITWIFI

Security type- WPA2-Enterprise

Encryption type-AES (Default) {Earlier, we had option to change it to TKIP, but now its not available}